KABUL, Afghanistan
\nMore than 160 people have died from the cold in Afghanistan this month in the worst winter in more than a decade, authorities said, as residents described being unable to afford fuel to heat homes in temperatures well below freezing.
\nMore than 160 people have died from the cold in Afghanistan this month in the worst winter in more than a decade, authorities said, as residents described being unable to afford fuel to heat homes in temperatures well below freezing.
\n\u201c162 people have died due to cold weather since January 10 until now,\u201d Reuters News Agency quoted Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Minister of Disaster Management, as saying.
\nAbout 84 of the deaths had taken place in the last week.
\nThe coldest winter in 15 years, which has seen temperatures dip as low as -34 degrees Celsius (-29.2 degrees Fahrenheit), has hit Afghanistan in the middle of a severe economic crisis.
\nMany aid groups have partially suspended operations in recent weeks due to a Taliban administration ruling that most female NGO workers could not work, leaving agencies unable to operate many programmes in the country.
\nIn a snowy field in the west of the Afghan capital, children rummaged through rubbish looking for plastic to burn to help their families, unable to afford wood or coal.
\nNearby, 30-year-old shopkeeper Ashour Ali lives with his family in a concrete basement, where his five children shiver from cold.
\n\u201cThis year, the weather is extremely cold and we couldn\u2019t buy coal for ourselves,\u201d he said, adding the small amount he makes from his shop was no longer enough for fuel.
\n\u201cThe children wake up from the cold and cry at night until the morning. They are all sick. So far, we have not received any help and we do not have enough bread to eat most of the time.\u201d
\nDuring a visit to Kabul this week, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said the world body was seeking exemptions to the ban on most female aid workers that was coming at one of the most vulnerable times for many Afghans.
\n\u201cThe Afghan winter \u2026 as everybody in Afghanistan knows is the big messenger of doom for so many families in Afghanistan as we go through these many years of humanitarian need \u2026 we see some of the consequences in loss of life,\u201d Griffiths told Reuters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KABUL, Afghanistan More than 160 people have died from the cold in Afghanistan this month in the worst winter in more than a decade, authorities said, as residents described being unable to afford fuel to heat homes in temperatures well below freezing. More than 160 people have died from the cold in Afghanistan this month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-309996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n